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. 2016 May 4;7(2):260-74.
doi: 10.4338/ACI-2015-09-RA-0125. eCollection 2016.

Integrating Heterogeneous Biomedical Data for Cancer Research: the CARPEM infrastructure

Bastien Rance  1 , Vincent Canuel  2 , Hector Countouris  1 , Pierre Laurent-Puig  3 , Anita Burgun  1
Affiliations

Integrating Heterogeneous Biomedical Data for Cancer Research: the CARPEM infrastructure

Bastien Rance et al. Appl Clin Inform. .

Abstract

Cancer research involves numerous disciplines. The multiplicity of data sources and their heterogeneous nature render the integration and the exploration of the data more and more complex. Translational research platforms are a promising way to assist scientists in these tasks. In this article, we identify a set of scientific and technical principles needed to build a translational research platform compatible with ethical requirements, data protection and data-integration problems. We describe the solution adopted by the CARPEM cancer research program to design and deploy a platform able to integrate retrospective, prospective, and day-to-day care data. We designed a three-layer architecture composed of a data collection layer, a data integration layer and a data access layer. We leverage a set of open-source resources including i2b2 and tranSMART.

Keywords: Data integration; medical information systems; translational medicine; translational research platform.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest in the research

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
CARPEM Translation Research Platform Architecture. The bottom layer represents the data providers (namely, hospitals and research labs). Locks represent controlled access: at institutional levels (represented in blue), or during the data integration (on arrows).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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